I will be energy independent by the end of this month.
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Last time (circa 2007) I said
âThe stock market is heading for a world of terrible long-term hurt and so is the economy.â
- I was right about the stock market, but the greater economy took it like a shin kick and went on without too much trouble.
- I am tempted to make the same prediction now, but given that last time I was only half right, why bother?
Able to grid disconnect or no? Some areas donât allow disconnect and so folks count running a surplus on their bill as independent, and it kind of is but kind of not.
Yes grid independent, you are only allowed to switch over during an outage if you have batteries. But even if it wasnât allowed, I doubt they would have the personnel to police it in the event of a collapse.
Yeah my house isnât independent for emergencies. But the my friends have a ranch thatâs off grid. About 10 families are going to co-locate there when things head south.
We have a hundred-acre farm here in Ohio, we currently lease it out to family, and family cabins in Wisconsin and Colorado. The one in Colorado is off-grid.
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Isnât the main difference being that we canât simply âprint moneyâ our way to prosperity this time?
Well tonightâs newly announced Fed package is printing money to âback stop depositers,â so itâs not much different.
But yes, even the keynesians (doves) on the Fed have recognized that we have reached a limit and can no longer print out way into prosperity.
I pretty much agree. Unless we can magically eliminate our deficit and debt, and magically make everyone in the US law abiding productive members of society, and magically give everyone salaries that offer everyone a comfortable living, then I simply see the US economy treading water for the next decade or so.
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Saving the banks is essentially a necessary evil, is it not? Wasnât one of the criticisms of the 2008 meltdown that the Fed should have jumped in sooner?
Current banking practices are unsustainable.
Best case would be an orderly unwind of those practices.
That is not what is happening.
Perhaps a broad-blanket heavy-handed intervention is called for in this case. I think tonightâs decision by the Fed is too much too soon, but as a conservative I often think that way.
Who are they?
A minority within the GOP.
They never existed.
It was never about smaller government. It was about putting money into the hands of its benefactors and convincing the rank and file to go along with it via The Two Santa Clauses.
Which, politically, worked precisely as advertised but economically was alwaysâŚalwaysâŚdoomed to failure.
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Getting this back on track a little bit.
Can taxing the rich solve all our problems?
It seems it depends on who is doing the accounting.
Biden claims billionaires pay only 3% on taxes, however the Brookings Institute spills the beans: If you only count actual income, billionaires pay somewhere in the mid 20%.
The 3% number Biden touts is when you count in âunrealized gainsâ, which is basically âvoodoo mathâ when you think about it.
There is no standard definition for an âunrealized gainâ so it can be anything you want it to be.
For example, I pay $440 a month on average on my mortgage. The average rent in my area is $1,200 a month. Is that $800 a month in unrealized gaines? Under Biden math, I could be subject to taxes on that $10,000 Iâm not paying in housing costs.
Itâs hokey stuff, and it needs to be put down with force.
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Destroying the job creators through taxation is stupid and a good way to distroy a country.
Perhaps that is their plan.
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Been their plan for decades.
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When those in government view people as expendable funding mechanisms we should expect evil scum to float to the top of political cesspools.
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In 2019 (makes a nice base year because it is (Pre-Covid"), total Federal State and Local government expenditures were 35.73% of the US GDP.
In the same year, 52% of Federal Spending was transfer payments. Many but not all those payments are matched on the state an local level. (Social Security is not, but unemployment is, food stamps are etc.) others are duplicated on the state level (every tate has its own transfer payments for things like childcare, student aid etcâŚ)
52% of 35.73% is 18.6%
Nine-and-a-half weeks of the pay your earn each year is taken from you and given to others in the forme of welfare, social security etcâŚ
If it werenât for transfer payments every working American could either
- take every summer off for life, or
- retire 9 years earlier.
